It appears that the next generation data platform from Microsoft has got an official general availability deadline set before the end of the first week of May 2010. Or at least, semi-official, considering that the sources of the GA date are not exactly among Microsoft official channels. However, customers looking forward to the Redmond company’s next database iteration should expect R2 to drop ahead of May 6th, 2010. The date was offered in a benckmark report from Unisys and confirmed on the official SQL Server Performance blog. (via Mary Jo Foley)

Microsoft has yet to confirm or deny the fact that SQL Server 2008 R2 will be made available to customers by May 6th, 2009. The software giant has only confirmed that the successor of SQL Server 2008 will be offered to customers in the first half of 2010, but did not deliver a more specific date.

“On November 2, 2009, Unisys published two new TPC results (TPC-E and TPC-H) using the newly announced SQL Server 2008 R2 (SQL Server 2008 R2 will be generally available by May 6, 2010) and Windows Server 2008 R2 (Windows Server 2008 R2 is generally available now). These results were published on the 96-core Unisys ES7000 system. These are the first SQL Server TPC results using more than 64 cores and they demonstrate the outstanding scalability of the Windows and SQL Server platform,” a member of the SQL Team noted.

Early adopters that want to get a head start when it comes down to the next version of the company’s data platform can now grab the November Community Technology Preview of SQL Server 2008 R2, right from Microsoft. In addition, the software giant is offering SQL Server 2008 R2 PowerPivot for Excel 2010 November CTP.

“The TPC-E publication was 2,012 tpsE with a price performance of $958.23 USD/tpsE. The configuration will be available by May, 6, 2010. The TPC-H publication was 102,778 QphH@3000GB with a price performance of $21.05 USD/QphH@3000GB. This configuration will also be available by May 6, 2010. You can see all the details for these outstanding results on the TPC web site at the following links: Unisys ES7000 7600R Enterprise Server – TPC-E and Unisys ES7000 7600R Enterprise Server – TPC-H,” the SQL team representative added.

SQL Server 2008 R2 November CTP is available for download here.
Office 2010 Beta 14.0.4536.1000 is available for download here.